Residents divided on benefits of the new state marketplace

Sep. 28, 2013

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Locals are preparing to start enrolling in New York’s health care exchange through the state marketplace as part of the federal Affordable Care Act on Tuesday.

Some are looking forward to the new options they might have, while others are not. But the effects will vary depending on a person’s circumstances.

In the past, if a person with low income didn’t qualify for Medicaid because they made slightly too much money, they could take a pay cut and reapply or go without insurance. Now that person will be able to buy a policy on the state health care exchange, and if their income is up to 400 percent of the poverty level they qualify for subsidies toward the cost.

“How much the subsidies are and whether it will be enough to encourage people to buy it, none of us will know,” said Georganne Chapin, president and CEO of Medicaid managed-care provider Hudson Health Plan.

Hopewell Junction resident Janet Puleo was covered under her late husband’s health care plan until June. Puleo, who lost her job as a retail security manager with Kmart in 2008, is now uninsured.

“I had the best you can get and now I don’t know what I’ll have,” Puleo said.

Peter M. Bonk, 73, of East Fishkill said the expansion of the government’s control on health care will result in a bureaucratic mess.

Bonk — who went into cardiac arrest at his great-nephew’s graduation earlier this year and was saved by a group of nurses in attendance — said health care in this country has served him well all his life. Now that’s in jeopardy, he said.

“There’s no need to have total government control of health care,” he said.

Staatsburg resident Harold McKinney had cancer. His medication, Gleevec, keeps him in remission.

“The nice thing to me is they can’t deny you because of a pre-existing condition,” McKinney said.